Ingredients:
6oz spinach
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup vinegar
First, put the spinach, red pepper and parmesan cheese into a salad bowl. I find that it really helps to have a "pretty" salad bowl around. It's amazing how much of your visual cues are tied into your taste buds. When that's arranged, separately mix together the oil and vinegar for the dressing. Drizzle it over your salad.
I'd have this with a nice white wine, to add in the antioxidant value, but you can of course have this with a flavored water too!
The total net carbs for this salad is about 8g. Note that this recipe makes a LOT of salad - you could probably give 6 people a small bowl each. It's more likely that 2 or 3 servings of a full salad size will result from this - but it's still under 2g per serving depending on how you fill the bowls. That makes this a very low carb meal that still provides a lot of nutrition in it.
If you haven't become an avid fan of spinach yet, now is your time to fully embrace the spinach lifestyle! Spinach is incredibly delicious, full of flavor, and of course best of all, its nutrition is a powerhouse! There's a reason that Popeye ate his spinach and became super strong.
Spinach only has .2g per half cup of carbs. That's barely on the scale! It is jam-packed with nutrients. It's got beta-carotene in very high quantities - only parsley and carrots have higher values of beta carotene. Your body turns this into Vitamin A.
In addition, Spinach provides wonderful vitamin K, folic acid, magnesium and much more.
If you can find any way to incorporate spinach into your daily meal plan - in omelets, in salads, and in stews or other recipes, I would most definitely do it. Eat your spinach!
Lisa Shea's Library of Low Carb Books
